Week commencing 22nd January 2007
Channel 4 has lost commercial deals and faces a rebuke from a powerful group of advertisers, who warn that controversy over alleged racist bullying on Celebrity Big Brother will increase the chances of the broadcaster being privatised. Long running sponsor 'The Carphone Warehouse' withdrew its £3m backing of the show as a result of the row whilst other advertisers asked for advertising to be allocated to airtime away from Celebrity Big Brother. A C4 spokesman confirmed the broadcaster had been approached by companies willing to replace 'The Carphone Warehouse' if the telecoms firm's decision to drop its sponsorship became permanent. A C4 spokesman confirmed that some advertisers had asked for their campaigns to be reallocated, but added: "We've had many more advertisers wanting to come in to Celebrity than wanted to leave." Source: MediaWeek
Sky's broadband video download service, Sky Anytime, has reached one million downloads one year after its launch. The service currently provides on-demand access to films, entertainment, documentary and sport programming, and is set to be expanded to include more content from both Sky and its channel partners. The service now has a quarter of a million registered users, with viewers able to keep pay per view content on their PCs for seven days. Source: MediaTel
Broadcaster Eurosport has introduced a new visual identity, which harmonises the logos of its various TV, internet and mobile channels. The group owns three TV channels -- Eurosport, Eurosport2 and Eurosportnews, as well as website Eurosport.com and mobile channel Eurosport Mobile. Source: BrandRepublic
 The London Paper and London Lite free newspapers face bans from central London unless both companies contribute towards a £500,000 clean-up cost, Westminster City Council threatened today. The council has warned News International and Associated Newspapers that they must help the council deal with the 'mountain of waste' their newspapers produce, or face distribution restrictions in the West End. An extra three tonnes of waste is generated every day in Westminster due to the 'deluge' of the London Paper and London Lite, the council said. Both News International and Associated are thought to be co-operating with the council. Source: Media Guardian
News International is believed to be launching a weekly news, comment and analysis magazine that could draw on the editorial resources of The Times. The new title will aim to complement established spin-offs such as home interest magazine The Sunday Times Inside Out and Sunday Times Travel. The proposed new title would compete for readers with BBC Magazines' planned news weekly 'Newsbrief', which is rumoured to be launching in April. Source: MediaWeek
Look, the IPC weekly women's magazine launching next week, is to cost £1.30 - which analysts believe could spark a magazine price war in the glossy high street weekly market. IPC are investing £18m over two years on the launch of Look, and will flood the market with 1.2m sample copies of the magazine next week. The magazine will come free with IPC's celebrity weekly Now and will also be distributed in supermarkets, newsagents, Marks & Spencer and the 10 biggest shopping malls in Britain. The magazine will also be distributed with News International's free evening newspaper the London Paper. Source: Media Guardian
 BBC programmes could soon be made available via a branded channel on Google's video sharing site, with the two media giants said to be in talks to decide a deal. Both parties are said to be keen to close the deal, which involves BBC Worldwide and the BBC eventually making content available via Google-owned YouTube. BBC Worldwide is understood to be looking at commercial options for the agreement, such as a share on contextual advertising that will run alongside BBC content. The BBC will use Google Video as a vehicle to raise the profile of its content by posting clips of popular programming. Source: MediaTel
The BBC took another step closer to becoming fully cross-platform today, after announcing that BBC Children will launch a children's version of the virtual world, Second Life. BBC Children's controller, Richard Deverell, said that CBBC World would have a soft launch over the summer, then roll out in September to coincide with the planned revamp of the CBBC digital TV channel. Source: MediaTel
A number of complaints have been lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority regarding The Daily Telegraph's website promotional campaign that declares itself to be Britain's No.1 quality newspaper website. The month-long campaign, which runs until January 28, bases the claim on figures from Hitwise that say Telegraph.co.uk was visited more times than any other newspaper website between July and September 2006, based on UK visits only. However, both The Guardian and The Times contest the claim, protesting that Hitwise collects data on the number of visits to certain URLs, rather than unique visitors. According to ABC Electronic, which audits website figures, The Guardian had 13.8m unique users in December 2006 compared with The Daily Telegraph's 6.4m. Source: BrandRepublic
 Virgin Radio is to launch a new Saturday afternoon album chart that will run for two hours from midday until the Rock 'N' Roll Football show at 2pm. The chat show will feature songs from current top 10 albums by Snow Patrol, Oasis and the Beatles, as well as showcasing album tracks which are not played by Virgin on a regular basis. Virgin Radio programme manager Mark Bingham commented: "There are some great acts in the top 10, eight of which are currently on the legendary Virgin Radio playlist - making this chart a real treat for our listeners and something different to hear on a Saturday afternoon". Source: Media Guardian
 Tax inspectors are using ads on cash machines to remind people to fill out self-assessment tax returns by the 31 January deadline. HM Revenue and Customs is using cash machine advertising medium ATM:ad for the first time, to run a countdown to the end of the month as part of its multimedia ad campaign. Each day the creative, screening on more than 1,000 cash machines throughout the UK, changes to show the number of days left before the deadline is reached. As well as appearing onscreen in an estimated five million one-to-one transactions, the campaign will feature on the front of the cash machine receipts. Source: MediaWeek
CBS Outdoor UK has won the contract for Northern Rail from rival Titan Outdoor. CBS plan to invest a six-figure sum in developing the 471 Northern Rail stations which cover the North West and North East of England, Yorkshire and Humberside. The Northern Rail contract includes stations in major cities such as Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester, but excludes those held by Titan under the separate Network Rail concession, such as Manchester Piccadilly. Andrew Oldham, chief operating officer of CBS Outdoor said the company would develop new poster sites and ad opportunities, including commuter packages for Leeds and Manchester. Source: MediaWeek
 ITV has pulled out of the running to buy cinema advertising business Pearl & Dean. Current media owner SMG had hoped to realise around £20m for the business, which holds a 25% share of UK cinema advertising contracts. Despite initially showing interest in the chain, ITV, which already owns larger rival Carlton Screen Advertising, is believed to have been worried a purchase would be blocked by competition authorities because it would effectively hand the broadcaster a monopoly in the cinema advertising business. Source: MediaWeek
UK Box Office Chart Fri, 19th Jan - Sun, 21st Jan:
(1) Rocky Balboa
(2) The Pursuit Of Happyness
(3) Night At The Museum
(4) The Last King Of Scotland
(5) Miss Potter
(6) Casino Royale
(7) Babel
(8) Smokin' Aces
(9) Employee Of The Month
(10) Happy Feet.
Source: Pearl and Dean
Edited by Mark Dix |
